Harmony's Way

CHAPTER 24

The flight to Boulder took only minutes. Harmony cradled Lance’s head as Elyiana worked at the wound on his chest, attempting to halt the flow of blood, barking reports over the link at her ear, to the hospital surgeons awaiting them.

“I love you. Don’t leave me…” Harmony whispered the words over and over again as she held his glazed gaze with her own.

She smoothed his hair, still feeling the power in his incredible body, the force of the man that he was. God, why had he done something so insane?

“We’re landing, Ely,” Jonas snapped as the heli-jet began to bank. “Surgeons are awaiting to assist and they have a room ready. Let’s get ready to haul ass.”

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered again, shaking, feeling the horror of the night as it echoed through her veins. “Don’t leave me, Lance.”

He stared back at her, his eyes clearing for a second, just a second.

“I love you… Harmony.”

Her tears rolled faster at his words. She hadn’t truly believed, not wholly. So much blood had stained her soul that she hadn’t believed he could really love her. That she could love.

“Move.” The doors whipped open as hands reached for the stretcher and she was torn from him once again.

“Let’s go.” Jonas was there, helping her from the heli-jet as she stumbled again, fighting to keep up with Lance, and yet unable to.

“They’re taking him straight to surgery,” Jonas growled in her ear. “The best surgeons in the city were called in the minute we landed in the forest. We have three of the nation’s best trauma surgeons here plus Ely.”

His arm was wrapped around her shoulders, his other hand holding her arm as he practically carried her into the entrance from the heli-pad.

She was shaking. Harmony could feel the shudders tearing through her, could hear the ragged growls at the back of her throat, and she couldn’t stop them.

“He wouldn’t run,” she whispered. “I begged him to run…”

“You would have run into a trap,” he snapped. “There were men coming up the mountain behind you. Alonzo was more than prepared for this, Harmony. Do you actually believe no one knew what you took from those labs? Why do you think those fucking Council soldiers and Coyotes were always after you?”

Lance would have known there were more men coming up the mountain. The winds would have warned him. Why had he done this? It made no sense. They could have run, sent Dane or even, God forbid, Jonas after the information if he had warned her of what awaited them. There had been many other ways to go rather than this one.

“I told him not to go.” She trembled as they raced to the elevator. “I wanted to call Dane. He should have called Dane.”

“Yeah, running would have been a good idea,” he snarled, furious. “Goddammit, I try to fucking save your hide and you keep running.”

“Save me?” She jerked back. “You call bargaining for a friend’s life saving me?”

“He’s the first fucking Leo, you stubborn woman.” His canines flashed at the side of his mouth. “I have to find him, I have no choice. And you’re so friggin’ hardheaded you would have never bargained with me.”

She jerked as though he had slapped her.

“I gave you my life,” she sobbed then. What did pride matter at this point? None of it mattered. “I stole that information, I killed those scientists and Breeds to save your life.”

Before she realized what she was doing, her palm flew out, slapping at his shocked, bewildered face.

“She ordered your death,” she screamed. “Ordered it and they were going to carry out her demands. They lied to you. They betrayed you. I killed them to save you, you bastard.”

Jonas jerked back.

“They would have found a way to warn me.”

Her laughter was cruel, hard. God, how she hated him at that moment. Hated every moment she had run, every bullet she had taken and every cold night she had ever spent, alone, because she had loved her brother. “The Breeds plotting to escape with you told her about your plans for escape,” she snarled. “The bold idea you hatched to use them to hold the scientists hostage while you connected the communications to an outside line and told the world about us. They used you. Just as Madame LaRue used you.”

His eyes narrowed then, his expression turning stony.

“I saved you.” Her lips twisted mockingly. “And you never fucking cared, did you, Jonas? You never suspected.”

“I cared once I knew the truth,” he said, his voice quiet as his quicksilver eyes darkened. “All I needed was the truth, Harmony, and you had it hid. Why, little sister, didn’t you come to me after the rescues instead of running from me?”

Her lips twisted painfully. “Because you should have trusted me. What use do I have for someone who always requires proof? When does the trust begin, Jonas?”

The elevator doors slid open as Harmony’s head began to pound with the years that stretched behind her. She had wanted to save him for what?

Flinching back from his touch, she stepped from the elevator, wiping at the tears that stained her face, giving no thought to the blood that marred her hands and now streaked her pale expression. She moved woodenly, her concentration on the operating room that lay just beyond the waiting room Jonas led her to.

She could hear Ely’s voice, the murmur of the supporting team of surgeons and nurses, the beep of life support. What was said around her didn’t matter. She wrapped her arms around her chest and leaned against the wall just outside the operating room and fought to hold onto the only link she had left to Lance.

He was her soul. How had she not realized that he had become her soul in such a short time? That all the barriers she had believed she held in place had dissolved beneath his touch? How had she missed it?

She lowered her head, feeling the loss of the hard, cold core of resolve she had once used to get her through each day. There had been no dreams before Lance. No hopes and no fears. There had been a daily fight to survive, to do what she had set out to do so long ago. She had saved Jonas, and she had been biding her time.

What then?

Harmony realized she had no plans after that. For ten years she had survived on that final goal, had fought mercilessly for it. Alone.

Nights spent killing, days spent trying to sleep through the nightmares that haunted her, and through it all, she knew, she had no plans after that end goal had been achieved. She would have died. Eventually. It wouldn’t have taken long for her enemies to tire of attempting to capture her. Eventually, they would have killed her.

And perhaps that would have been best. If she had died before now, Lance would have never felt this need to sacrifice himself.

What had she done? Silent sobs shook her body as she fought to brace herself against the pain.

“We’re not going to make it.”

Harmony felt her heart stop as she heard Ely speak from the operating room.

“The wound is too severe…”

“The bleeding is growing worse…”

“BP is falling…”

“We can’t repair the damage fast enough…”

“BP is critical…”

The hard signal of the heart monitor began to flatline as Harmony’s agonized, feral scream tore from her throat.

Lance felt the winds. They whispered over his body as he stood beneath the hot desert sun, his arms widespread, his head lifted to the gentle caress. It reminded him of Harmony. Her scent was in the air, honeysuckle and roses; he could almost taste the soft, delicate treat of her kiss.

He was dying. He could feel the chill racing through his body, competing with the warmth of the sun, and the sorrow that filled him was like a fiery ache.

Then he heard his son’s laughter and Harmony’s gentle voice calling him in. There was no fear in the tone; there was amused indulgence, a comforting, maternal sound he had always loved hearing from his own mother.

Harmony was safe. There could be no regret in her safety; his regret was that his arms weren’t there to hold her. He would never taste her laughter, never cradle his child against his chest. He would never know his woman’s happiness.

“The price was paid. Blood was shed. Your life for hers,” a voice whispered then, gentle, soothing. “Your return depends only upon your own will.”

His eyes opened. The winds blew before him, shimmering, iridescent, glittering beneath the brilliant rays of the sun. The force of it was nearly blinding, filled with heat and whispering promises that shook him to the core of his being.

“Are you strong enough to return, child of the wind?” the voice whispered. “Strong enough to hold onto all you died for? You have held your end. A life for a life, blood for blood.”

“I can return?“

“A life for a life. Blood for blood. The bargain was met. Your return depends only upon your desire to be.”

He heard the scream then, feral, agonized, a sound filled with such misery, such bleak, resounding sorrow that at first he wondered if it were his own.

Through the shimmering waves of heat and air, he saw her then. She was fighting someone. Jonas. He was holding her to the floor as Megan and Braden attempted to help hold her still. Her hands were clawing at a door, her head tilted back, blood and dirt and tears streaking her face as she wailed his name.

“Harmony.” He whispered her name, reaching out to her. His hands sank into the shimmering waves of life, reaching for her, not even minding the hard, brutal jerk of his body.

Then darkness filled his vision and his own cry echoed inside his mind as he fought to find her once again. He had to get to Harmony.

“Rest, child of the wind,” the voice whispered as his body became leaden, his soul aching for the sound of Harmony’s voice. “Rest for now …”

It didn’t matter that the empath held her in her arms or that Braden and Jonas were arguing quietly in a corner. Through gritty eyes, Harmony stared at the clock on the waiting room wall and counted the time, second by second.

She could hear the muted beep of the heart monitor in the operating room, the proof that Lance had come back, and so far, he was still alive. The sounds of the surgeons’ voices had drifted away for the most part. She didn’t want to know what they said; she couldn’t live with the knowledge of what had happened to his insides.

How many times had she killed with a single gunshot to the heart? The knife was her preferred method of killing, not her only one.

She was aware of Megan’s hand petting through her hair gently as Harmony’s head lay in her lap. The other woman treated her as a child, and for the moment, Harmony didn’t have the will to resist. Lance’s parents were on their way to Boulder, via the Breeds’ heli-jet. They would arrive soon. And she was supposed to be there. She was supposed to face them, the woman who had nearly killed their son.

Cousins, aunts and uncles were said to be rushing to the hospital. Harmony had no idea how she was going to face them all.

“They’ll love you.” It took a moment for Megan’s soft voice to penetrate. “Lance loves you. You carry his baby and he chose to risk his life for you. You didn’t force him to do it, Harmony. He did what he knew he had to.”

“He didn’t have to,” she whispered. “He should have let me die.”

“And he would have followed you,” Megan sighed. “At least this way, he’s fighting to live. Whether he does or not, you are still a part of our family. Just as your child is.”

If he didn’t live, she would follow him. Megan and Braden would raise the baby with all the love Harmony had no idea how to give. She would follow Lance. Just as she had sworn she would.

“Harmony…” Megan protested. “That wasn’t what Lance wanted.”

Harmony knew the empath was reading her emotions, perhaps even her thoughts. It no longer mattered.

“I told him,” she whispered. “I warned him, the choice is his. Life or death. I’ll follow wherever he goes.”

She wouldn’t live without him, and she knew it. She was aware of Jonas and Braden watching her worriedly, of the silence that filled the waiting room.

“He died so you would live.” Megan’s voice was tearful. “You’ll let him sacrifice himself for nothing?”

Not for nothing. The child they had created had to live, she knew that. But Harmony knew she couldn’t go on alone. The ghost of all she could have had would haunt her forever.

“His child will live.” Tears Harmony didn’t know she could still shed bled from her eyes. “I can’t fight anymore, Megan.” She swallowed tightly. “There’s no fight left in me.”

Even though Megan argued with her, she knew there would be no changing Harmony’s mind. It was no more than she would do if anything ever happened to Braden. He was her world. Her light. He was all her hopes and her dreams, and her greatest desire. It would be no different for Lance and Harmony.

She had stayed away from the couple, not because of Lance’s fears for her, but because Megan had sensed Harmony’s battles and she knew there would have been no way to disguise her sorrow, her compassion. Harmony hadn’t needed that. Not then. She needed it now.

Megan lifted her eyes to Jonas, aware of her own tears. The solid core of determination inside the young woman she held was unbreakable. It wasn’t grief or sorrow talking. This was the woman who had fought, had sacrificed and who had lived with nightmares every day of her life. Megan knew that if they lost Lance, they would lose Harmony as well.

Jonas’s emotions, though well guarded, were easy enough for her to read. His heart was breaking. Right there inside that stone wall of a chest, beyond the mocking sarcasm and the manipulating games, he was breaking apart.

Megan had kept her silence on Jonas. She rarely agreed with him and she let him maintain his facade of vengeful, righteous Breed fury. It wouldn’t pay to ever let him know that she saw deeper than that, that she saw his nightmares. That she saw his pain.

“Fight for Lance then.” She turned her attention back to Harmony as she felt the fragile, weak force of Lance’s emotions searching around her.

He was alive. So fiercely alive and determined to protect Harmony, even now. Megan could feel it. He had sensed his mate’s pain, her agony, and nothing short of death, perhaps not even death, would keep Lance’s spirit from seeking her out, attempting to comfort her. It was the first sign Megan had seen that they hadn’t lost him. Until now, she hadn’t been certain herself that he would live.

Relief poured through her. She had been waiting for him. She knew her cousin.

“Harmony, let me take you to Lance.” The girl jerked as though to get up. “Just stay still. There’s only one way to do it, and it might not work. You can help him fight. Help him fight, Harmony.”

He was so weak. She had never felt his life force so weak, and it terrified her. As she settled her hands over Harmony’s head, she let herself reach out to him. She called his name, met the searching tendrils of psychic warmth, and then she let Harmony do the rest.

She was shocked by the sudden pouring of heat from Harmony’s body, through her own, and toward Lance’s searching mind. As though Harmony had been waiting for him, preparing for him.

How the woman managed the will to send such energy through a channel so fragile, Megan had no idea. But she swore, as she closed her eyes and maintained the bridge between reality and spirituality, that she felt them embrace.

Was she asleep? Had she finally lost the will to even stay conscious? Harmony felt Lance reaching for her, his arms holding her, and though he would have given her the heat he always tried to instill in her, she gave her own instead.

Joy exploded inside her as she felt the unraveling in her soul. As though the tattered remains of past demons and nightmares were burned away, and in their place, something new was being born. She could feel Lance. He was alive. He was there, holding her, his lips pressed to her forehead, his voice murmuring, comforting. Forgiving.

Lance was going to live.